The Big City (1928 film)

The Big City
The Big City
	Film poster
Directed by	Tod Browning
Written by	Waldemar Young (screenplay); Tod Browning (story); Joseph Farnham (titles)
Produced by	Irving G. Thalberg
Starring	Lon Chaney; Betty Compson; Matthew Betz; Marceline Day; James Murray; John George
Cinematography	Henry Sharp
Edited by	Harry Reynolds
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date	March 24, 1928;
Running time	70 minutes (7 reels)
Country	United States
Language	Silent with English intertitles

The Big City is a 1928 American silent crime film directed by Tod Browning^[1] and starring Lon Chaney. Waldemar Young wrote the screenplay, based on a story by Tod Browning. The film is now lost.^[2]

The last known print of the film had been sent to Australia in the late 1950s. The film was returned to MGM and placed in their vaults where it was destroyed in the same vault fire that also claimed London After Midnight and The Tower of Lies in 1965.^[3] A short trailer for the film survives at Cinémathèque française in France, but it does not include any actual footage from the film itself.^[4] Stills exist showing Chaney in the Chuck Collins role.^[5]^[6] This was Betty Compson's only film at MGM though she had appeared in a few Goldwyns, and even produced one, at the beginning of the decade.

The sets were designed by Cedric Gibbons. The set for Chuck Collins' nightclub was also used for the nightclub scenes in While the City Sleeps. Clinton Lyle, who plays a gangster in The Big City, was one of Chaney's closest personal friends.

The film was in production from October 27, 1927 to November 19, 1927, and cost $172,000 to produce. The worldwide box office gross was $833,000. Fearing the censors might have a problem with the film's criminal characters, Thalberg requested an extra 90-minute alternate ending be filmed which would have showed that Chuck reformed in the finale, but the footage was never used and no longer exists.

The film's tagline was "Lon Chaney gives his most effective performance now as the underworld leader in this throbbing film production. A sputter of bullets in the dark...a battle of crook against crook...and the flowering of a beautiful romance in this amazing setting."

^ "Progressive Silent Film List: The Big City". Silent Era. Retrieved May 10, 2008.
^ The Library of Congress American Silent Feature Film Survival Catalog:The Big City
^ Blake, Michael F. (1998). "The Films of Lon Chaney". Vestal Press Inc. Page 174. ISBN 1-879511-26-6.
^ "Pochettes photos - Recherche transversale par film". www.cineressources.net. Retrieved June 11, 2017.
^ "The Big City (1928)".
^ "Silent Era : Progressive Silent Film List".

[silentera-1] "Progressive Silent Film List: The Big City". Silent Era. Retrieved May 10, 2008.

[2] The Library of Congress American Silent Feature Film Survival Catalog:The Big City

[3] Blake, Michael F. (1998). "The Films of Lon Chaney". Vestal Press Inc. Page 174. ISBN 1-879511-26-6.

[4] "Pochettes photos - Recherche transversale par film". www.cineressources.net. Retrieved June 11, 2017.

[5] "The Big City (1928)".

[6] "Silent Era : Progressive Silent Film List".

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